Five weeks, five bridges, and one lesson: bridges can only bear witness. They cannot compromise, cannot learn, cannot give something up for the sake of connection. Only we can do that. The final part of a series on bridges, on Election Day.
Five weeks, five bridges, and one lesson: bridges can only bear witness. They cannot compromise, cannot learn, cannot give something up for the sake of connection. Only we can do that. The final part of a series on bridges, on Election Day.
From Andrić’s bridge at Višegrad - which has endured centuries of human inhumanity - to one of the deepest canyons in Europe where an engineer broke his own bridge to protect the people it connected. Part IV of my five-part series on bridges.
In July 1995, more than 8,000 people were murdered in and around Srebrenica, a genocide like nothing Europe had seen since World War II. Ryrie and I walked the rows of tombstones in Potočari, passed shelled and abandoned Bosniak homes in Srebrenica, and amidst the darkness found a family and a glimmer of hope.
My paternal great-great grandfather, James T. Norton (1844-1883), was a man of few words. Or, at least that’s what his journal from 1865 indicates. It’s been sitting near my desk for years. I’ve scanned the pages, faded scribbles in pencil recording minute datapoints about each day with little fanfare: weather, movement, rations, commands, engagements. Even […]
Mesmerized. There’s no other way to put it. The scene unfolding before me was captivating, subtle hues of warming a jagged Himalayan sea, blues morphing, glimmers of amber and crimson flashing on distant ridges, shadows etching an impossible landscape. It was still frigid here, sunlight not yet penetrating the frigid shadows of the West Ridge […]
I spent the majority of today - as I am wont to do - spiraling down a rabbit hole of thought. I had intended to write, had hoped to write, a thoughtful Thursday Thought post on the idea of greatness; a concept that has been rattling my mind and haunting my thoughts for weeks now. […]
Everest has become quite a circus these days. No judgment from me, but seeing the relative chaos makes me think back to quiet days, simple times in the quietude and ephemerality of the mountain, and what's always drawn me there in the first place.
Everest, perspective, Real - Not AI
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